2020's Contorted Census Data: Doom for Democrats?
The US population on April 1, 2020 (census day) was 331,449,281
Monday’s announcement of the first round of census data was being described in some quarters as the worst thing that ever happened to Democrats. Not so fast, folks.
There’s so much more going on with these numbers. Quantifying them in strictly partisan terms misses other trends likely to have a bigger impact on the nation in coming decades.
California will lose one seat in the House of Representatives, which upon redistricting will likely end up reflecting on the outflow of humans from Los Angeles to the Inland Empire. This will happen, not because *everybody’s leaving* the Golden State as the right would have us believe, but due to the fact the we *only* gained a little over two million residents.
Nationwide, the increase in population over the past decade was 7.4%, the second slowest growth in US history. (The first being the decade of the great depression).California’s population increased by 6.1%.
Here is the ‘bad news’, via the New York Times:
Combined with the decline in inflows of immigrants, and shifting age demographics — there are now more Americans 80 and older than 2 or younger — the United States may be entering an era of substantially lower population growth, demographers said, putting it with the countries of Europe and East Asia that face serious long-term challenges with rapidly aging populations.
“This is a big deal,” said Ronald Lee, a demographer who founded the Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California at Berkeley. “If it stays lower like this, it means the end of American exceptionalism in this regard.”
Maybe the Tucker Carlsons of the world might want to think twice about the “you will not replace us” thing. They won’t, because they rather us die poor and white than have “them’ living in the neighborhood.
Compared to population projections, Sun Belt states gained fewer congressional seats than expected, with AZ, FL, & TX each falling one seat shy of expectations, benefitting MN, NY, & RI. There were some pundits predicting California would lose two seats.
https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1386783404058943488?s=20
Overall there was a shift of only seven House seats among 13 states — the smallest change ever. The results leave California with 52 seats, still the largest among the states, and Texas second at 38 seats.
California’s Citizens Redistricting Commission will be drawing new district boundaries based on detailed county and city data to be released later in the year. Local redistricting commissions will also have to wait, which means --among other things-- that candidates for San Diego City Council seats in 2022 don’t know exactly who they’ll end up representing.
In California’s case, the efforts of Gov. Newsom and the Legislature’s nearly $200 million invested in the California Counts paid off.
Field operations run through hundreds of Community Based Organizations throughout the state and a massive advertising blitz to get residents to complete the census likely saved a Congressional seat, which some observers believed would have been Rep. Mike Levin’s 49th District.
The states that apparently didn’t do so well in counting had Republican Governors who bought into the Trumpian notion of downplaying the importance of the census. Once the past administration knew it was going to lose court cases asking people about their immigration status, they just lost interest. And it likely cost them some seats.
As the first report out of California’s Redistricting Partners points out (with a bonus sports analogy):
The other half of this might be the fact that Texas, which could have received up to 4 additional seats, only received 2. California and Texas have many of the same Hard to Count populations, but California lawmakers found it politically expedient to punch back at the failing census operations under President Trump by funding programs that backfilled those efforts. In Texas, as one can imagine, the political dynamic was the opposite. There was no willingness in that legislature or with Governor Greg Abbot to question the Trump Administration or to go out of their way to politically empower the immigrant communities by ensuring a more complete count there. And they weren’t interested in giving a ton of resources to community-based groups with which they aren’t naturally aligned.
A surprise that no one saw coming was Florida only gaining 1 seat, which again points to a Republican state that failed to do real census outreach partly due to the political dynamics of always following Donald Trump.
So, Texas fumbled worse than Leon Lett and Florida’s opportunity was missed like Ray Finkle’s kick.
There are people moving out of California. The rent’s just too damn high. Historically, outward migration to Texas is driven by property value increases, not tax increases or Gay Pride flags flying in Hillcrest, as William Fulton, former planning director for the City of San Diego, notes in a paper published by the Rice|Kinder Urban Institute.
Anyhow, these migrants are taking their Left Coast politics with them, especially in Texas.
From Axios:
Although Biden states will lose out during this round of apportionment, Brookings Institution demographer William Frey told Axios the overall gains in western states and Texas reflect, at least in part, people moving out of one Democrat-leaning state: California.
So, "politically, many of these Electoral College-seat gaining states may be trending 'bluer' politically because of the movement into them from Democratic-leaning states," he said.
https://twitter.com/BCAppelbaum/status/1386769707567550468?s=20
Another big loser in the reapportionment game will be the District of Columbia, which while gaining more than 14% in population, still has exactly zero seats in Congress. D.C. has more people than Wyoming and Vermont and will likely pass Alaska in the coming decade.
One way to look at the bottom line of the census is to understand that if the 2020 election had been held under these new counts, Biden would have won with 303 electoral votes (instead of 306).
The more alarming way to view this, however, is to understand the advantage Republicans have when it comes to redistricting: they have unified control of the congressional redistricting process in eighteen states as opposed to seven for the Democrats, according to the Brennan Center.
Some of this advantage will be mitigated by a gaggle of lawsuits voting rights advocates are preparing. But they’ll have to wait until the outrageous acts of Gerrymandering are made public.
https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/status/1386762002589093889?s=20
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